“I’m astounded at how many schools I’m running into where nobody is a full-pay student, and yet the sticker price continues to go up. That does add confusion,” Grawe says. Simpson College responded to a drop in its Pell-eligible incoming students with the Simpson Promise,11 which provides free first-year tuition to students who meet certain criteria, explains Simpson College President Jay Simmons. “It’s been very encouraging to us. We think that we have found a formula that works for this income group.” Cutting costs Many institutions are going to have to make excruciating choices about programs to increase efficiency. “We need to make reallocations. We need to be willing to be nimble to do this. So
we need to cut back on our curriculum at many places,” Lapovsky says. Rich Karlgaard, Forbes, emphasizes the need for adaptability, which requires commitment to values and not just cutting corners in the short term and then finding “in the long term you’ve created rot that rots just about everything.” Grawe calls it “doubling down on your mission.” “Who are we and what can we do to more completely fulfill that mission?” Diversifying revenues Liberal arts colleges in particular can increase revenue by considering online and hybrid courses, adding programs where student demand is high and expanding their admissions to populations, such as older students and veterans, Lapovsky advises.
Access and inclusivity require putting the student in the middle, she says, “And if we put the student in the middle, these sorts of programs are not anathema to our mission because they’re serving students.” She notes that some liberal arts colleges have started offering online summer courses to keep that tuition on campus. “The schools that I know that are thriving are the ones that are diversifying revenue.” “In a tail wind all you need is a strategy and execution. When the head wind comes, if you haven’t invested in values as an institution, as an individual, then you’ll find that life gets very shaky.” – Rich Karlgaard, Forbes
Reframing the Narrative: Leadership Toward Inclusive Excellence
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